A hint of the Bachelorette Photos

On the train with Z, Ouiser, & Feather Nester

(You should SEE some of the pics of Ouiser I have - don't let her fool you with this "I'm an innocent Southern girl who gardens" message. Makes me love her even more!)

Being presented with my presents for the night:
tiara, boa, and all kinds of other naughty stuff
(Yes, that is the 70s party shirt being repurposed
as a bachelorette shirt!)

Being brought up on stage for my lap dance - I really can't post any other photos on here!

My sweet girls - B's cousin and his sister

Me with a former intern and a co-worker - they were in NYC and came over to join us!

Bridal Shower Pictures

The beautiful tea bag favors my future sister-in-law made

Z, me, Feather Nester, & B's sister

Scrapbook

Me & momma

Being "showered" with well wishes

Bridal shower & bachelorette party

Where do I even begin?? This will probably be long, so brace yourself. This past weekend was the double party extravaganza of the bridal shower and the bachelorette party. I knew absolutely nothing at all about the entire weekend and I was so busy getting the house ready for everyone's arrival and keeping up with daily life that I had no time to think about what was ahead.

Friday Night
Because the shower was early on Saturday (11am) a bunch of the girls came to the house on Friday to spend the night. We had a completely full house and it was wonderful - me, my mom, Bryan's sister, Z, Ouiser, and Feather Nester.

When B and I were buying our dining room table a few years ago I stood in the store looking at it and tried to picture Thanksgiving dinners with our families, and nights of laughter and wine with my girlfriends. Growing up with a large extended (Italian!) family, stories around the dining room table over laughter and wine is such a crucial party of life that I felt like we needed a great space to do that. I wanted the chairs to be the kind you can sit in for hours and never want to leave.

That was just how it was on Friday night and it was truly a dream come true. We sat at that table from 6pm to midnight and never moved. We laughed and told stories for six hours and it was heaven - everything I could ever want out of life. All of my friends (and family) are so spread out, that to have some of them all together, relaxing for an entire evening was a simple pleasure that I will remember forever.

Saturday - daytime
Despite having that many women in one place, thanks to careful pre-planning, we were able to get ready and get all of us out of the house by 9:15am. We arrived at the shower early so the girls could set up and I got to watch as they kept setting out one fun thing after the next.

The shower was at The Rose Garden tea house in Binghamton and it was so precious - high ceilings, pink walls, tea cups everywhere. Very girly and sweet and perfect for a bridal shower. There were about 20 people there and we had lunch and then started the games and gifts.

We played a great game that made the gift-opening part of the shower much more tolerable. Not that getting gifts isn't great, but there's something strange about opening gifts while everyone has to watch. You get worried that everyone is so bored. But the girls conspired and had asked B all kinds of questions beforehand and had them all written out on cards. When the gift you gave was being opened, you read the question and I had to guess what his answer would be. It was very funny and a great way to keep everyone involved.

We received all kinds of wonderful gifts from the registry that I'm very excited to go home and use. And again, the whole process is a little surreal so I'm sure I have all kinds of cool presents that I forgot about. One of the few off-registry gifts was this amazing idea from my aunt that I fully intend to steal it! She spent the last year buying little decorative gifts (hand towels and other small things) for every holiday - Easter, St. Patrick's Day, July 4th, etc - and gathered them all together in a big Tupperware container. Such a cool idea!

At the end, we went outside and did the sweetest Puerto Rican tradition that Z brought the stuff for. There is a big decorated umbrella with tons and tons of confetti inside. The bride is holding it by her side and then she opens it and raises the umbrella above her head so she is "showered" with well wishes! I think there are some great pictures, but I don't have any yet, so you'll have to wait. There were so many great details from the shower, the favors and scrapbook and other fun stuff, that I can't wait to show you pictures of.

After that, we hustled into the cars and drove down to the Beacon train station to take the train into the city.

Saturday Night
God... how do I properly convey what happened on Saturday night? Again, I knew nothing, and again, the girls went all out. It blows my mind how much time and thought went into planning this weekend. There were so many logistics to figure out and so much to set up - I spent the whole weekend just feeling so loved.

Saturday night we pre-partied in our hotel rooms for a little while where I got yet more gifts - a tiara, a feather boa, some "love cuffs," a list of tasks I had to try to accomplish throughout the night, and some very cute little bride goodies from Victoria's Secret. After that it was time for our dinner reservation and I found myself at a place called Lucky Chengs - Drag Queen Dinner Theater.

Again, I just can't possibly explain what went down in those four fabulous and hysterical hours. I'll give it a go and when I see you at the wedding, let me know if you want the saucier details :)

After having a few drinks upstairs, our table was ready and we went into the basement to get ready for our show! There were two main bachelorette parties and then two smaller ones. We got to see a little drag show, hear our hostess insult the crowd and got served drinks in huge bowls with lots of straws.

After that it was time for the humiliation to begin... my devious girls bought me a "lap dance" from one of the performers and I was brought up on the stage, put in a chair and then given the craziest lap dance and tossed all over the stage. It was like a roller coaster ride - so crazy and so fast that I had no idea what was going on. I just kept looking at our table and everyone had the funniest expressions on their faces. Let's just say that my shoulder is bruised from the performance and I spent most of the day yesterday saying "can you believe that lap dance!!!" It was awesome.

I know we ate dinner in there somewhere, but it was so dimly lit and there were so many other things to watch that I barely recall eating. The other highlight of the night was when they called the 4 bachelorettes up on stage for a contest - the contest was to see who could give one of the "girls" the best lap dance. I was the third to go and spent the first two performances thinking "oh my god, I want to die, how am I going to do this?? I used to love this - I spent all of Feather Nester's bachelorette party dancing on a bar!"

But then I knew I had to beat Elise. Elise was 90lb bride from New Jersey who was all about herself - such selfish behavior is apparently what trips my very slight competitive lap dance urges and I "brought it." After the votes from the audience where some of my girls lost their voices and I saw more than one of them standing on chairs and pounding the table, it was called a draw. However, I feel I secretly won because as soon as the contest was over, the performer pulled me to the side and said "Girl! I feel like I know so much about you know! I have never had a show like that!" Oh yeah.... I totally won.

After that, our night at Lucky Chengs drew to a close. The were offering karaoke, but we passed. I refuse to sing in public - I consider it a public service that I'm providing by not singing. However, it did lead to the absolute funniest quote of the entire weekend when I told Feather Nester that there was no way I was going to sing karaoke and she replied "You licked a drag queen but you won't sing karaoke?!!!?" Correct. (For the record, it was her cheek - don't let your minds spin out of control)

Once the main part of the night was done, we wanted to go dancing. So we hit up Coyote Ugly for about ten seconds until we saw that it was much different from five years ago. When we were there for Feather Nester's party, it was all good fun, just girls dancing on the bar to 80s music. Well now it's disgusting and they were making girls take their shirts off, hand over their bras, and then making them dance on the bar in Coyote Ugly t-shirts. So we put down our drinks and left immediately.

But thanks to one of the girls who lives in NYC, we found a great place to dance and ended the night dancing and then eating breakfast food at the 24 hr. diner under our hotel. By 4am, we were all snug in bed.

So that's it. I'll be sure to post pictures as soon as I get them. And a HUGE thank you to all of my wonderful friends and family who spent so much time to give me an incredibly special and fun weekend - it was truly one of the best weekends of my life.

What's Your SSB?

There was an episode of Sex & the City once that talked about our SSB - our Secret Single Behavior. The things we like to do when no one is around to judge or make fun. One character liked to eat jelly on saltines while standing in the kitchen, one liked to study her facial pores, etc.

Well... apparently... I like to watch the horror show known as the Marie Osmond Dolls on QVC. Yes, you read that right. I had caught the show about 4 years ago while at my mom's house in Plattsburgh and sat absolutely riveted at how ridiculous the whole thing was. I watched her lick the inside of the doll's mouth so it would look more like a real baby! She licked it!! This time I learned that every Christmas she strings the dolls up and decorates her tree with them. And frankly, there are not words for that visual.

I am telling you, it's like a big porcelain train wreck that you just can't look away from. I sit there wondering what crazy thing they're going to say next. And every doll is "precious," "darling," "my favorite," etc. And for the life of me, I just can't imagine who buys these things. What type of grown woman has a house filled with $100 dolls??? Anyway, it's fantastic, if you ever catch it and have a half an hour that you'll never get back, I encourage you to indulge.

So for our mini Thursday poll, if you're brave enough to share, what is your SSB???

Other than watching tiny dolls while taking a break from cleaning, we're in preparations for our visitors. My mom arrives today, and tomorrow brings Ouiser, Feather Nester, B's sister, and Z. That's a lot of girls in one house! :) I haven't had the time to think about how lovely this weekend will be, but I know it will. Looking forward to reading your SSBs!!!

"Desiny"

What the heck is "Desiny," you ask? We'll get to that later. First some pictures from the 70s Disco party we went to this weekend in Rochester...

B says "I can get you into this '73 Oldsmobile for nothin' little lady!"

Have you ever in your life seen skin that pale??

We had the most wonderful, relaxing weekend in Rochester with D & Z. It was Z's birthday on Saturday night, so we went to a fundraiser called Ugly Disco. Most of the girls there clearly had decade confusion as they were all in white go-go boots, printed mini dresses, and wide headbands. And if you forget your Austin Powers trivia, that was the 60s, not the 70s.

Then on Sunday we did what can only be described as the world's best activity - we sat on patio furniture in their back yard and just visited and grilled for most of the day. Heaven! It was such a rejuvenating day and we really needed it to refuel.

On a separate note, we picked up our wedding rings today. And although it made our savings account sad, it initially made us very excited. That is, until I realized there was a spelling error on my ring. A SPELLING ERROR engraved in platinum!! What the hell?!!

The engraving we chose was supposed to read "Destiny Love Laughter 6.21.08" We thought it really summed up how we feel about each other and what's important to us. B's ring looked great, but after staring at my tiny letters for a while, I realized that there was a problem. So tomorrow morning they go back to be fixed. Sigh...

Lots of cleaning this week as we get ready for a packed house on Friday - 5 gals! All in preparation for Saturday's bridal shower and bachelorette party. B is headed home to Albany to play 36 holes, so he'll be in man-Heaven.

Friday Fun Stuff

I just can't even pretend to work this afternoon, so here are a few interesting items for you. The first are these adorable little lamps made from wine glasses, tea lights, and vellum. SO cute - I'm trying to figure out how I can incorporate them into the wedding reception. Click the title for instructions and a pattern.

Wine Glass Candle Lampshades

The next great idea are these little individual servings of nachos. Again, click the title for the recipe.

Nacho Bites

Both ideas come from the Sugar series of websites - great sites! There are different websites for different interests, you should go check them out. (PopSugar for gossip, YumSugar for treats, LilSugar for moms, etc, etc) I think there are 17 different sites, everything from shopping to politics.

We're headed to Rochester tomorrow night to see our good friends D & Z. Z is a bridesmaid and I miss her terribly! I can't even remember the last time we saw each other. Hope you all have a great weekend.


PS - For fellow fans, did you SEE what happened on The Office!!!

BIG Announcement!!

Yes, that’s right; the AnderBerry clan has some big news (no, I’m not pregnant!)… After the wedding, our little family is moving to Music City!!! We’re leaving the cozy, wintery confines of New England and will now be (gasp!!) Southerners.

Why the big life change?? Well, B decided last fall that he so truly hated winter that this winter absolutely had to be his very last. Had to. But we didn’t want to just pick a random city where we didn’t know anyone, and all of our family lives in snow country. So we looked around to see where our various friends lived and came up with some possibilities.

After lots of thinking and talking and research, we started to consider Nashville as a top choice. Despite all of the terrible things that liberal New Englanders think about the South, we found out that Nashville was an exceedingly cool city. It’s liberal, it’s a great size, it continues to be ranked a “Top place to live,” “Top city for young professionals to relocate,” etc.

So we took our recent trip there and fell in love. The city is beautiful, liberal, clean, growing, close to Feather Nester and Ouiser, has 4 seasons, has both mountains and lakes, and on and on. Plus, could there be a better city for a former professional fiddle player to live in??

So now you know the other reason why we’ve been so busy and frantic lately!! We aren’t in a position to move unless B has a job, so he’s been job hunting like mad. My last day at the museum is June 13^th, a week before the wedding. The plan, ideally, is that we’ll have the wedding and honeymoon, and I’ll come back and spend the rest of July packing and organizing and then we’ll leave.

I’ll leave you with a USA map so you can find Tennessee and see where it is in relation to everything else. Several people have made comments that they don’t have a good idea of where exactly it is, so in case you feel the same, here’s your map!

Counting down

Sorry! I'm catching all kinds of flack from my two co-workers, Billy and Ithaca Chick, for being such a terrible blogger lately. Didn't I already warn everyone that the updates will get farther apart as the wedding approaches?

I realized yesterday as I was signing up for a tanning package how freaking close the big day is!! I went to buy the three month package and realized that that one would have allowed me a full month of tanning after the wedding. Ahhh!!

"Do you want to be bronzed or do you want sun protection?" the little tanning gal asked me. "Uh, I just want to take the shine off - I have no desire to be a bronzed goddess." So we can add one more thing to the already ridiculous schedule. The schedule that has to be accomplished with only one car between us, may I remind you.

Anyway, enough complaining. B has been hard at work on the beautiful centerpieces. We went to Binghamton Saturday so he and my cousin could turn 3 8' pieces of fir into 20 lovely centerpiece bases. Cousin A has all kinds of fun tools and plenty of talent to boot, so he was able to make them look very professional. But then came all of the sanding, staining, and polyurethane-ing, which has been taking place in the garage every night. They look so good I fear my aunt is correct that people are going to run off with them at the end of the night. If you're reading this - don't do that! They're already slated for the bridal party, parents, grandparents, etc.

We also took a trip to the outlets on Sunday, though I'm sorry to say it wasn't that successful. I'm still without a dress for the bridal shower in two weeks. I did, however, get a beautiful dress for the Friday night welcome party and a great beachy dress for the honeymoon. I decided a few weeks ago that I don't own enough green (and aren't redheads supposed to wear green?), so the kelly green beach dress kicked off the new decision. It's so pretty!

OK, that's it for me. I'll try to be better with the updates!

The Return

Wow!! What a successful poll! Those are going to have to be a monthly staple. That was so interesting to learn about the little inside dreams and loves that people have. It reminds me of the email questionnaires that someone will send you every year or so where you fill out all the funny questions and learn all kinds of interesting things about your friends.

Being the 'reach for the stars' kind of gal that I am, I'm always most interested to hear about the secret things people want out of life and their hopes for the future. And speaking of that (kind of), I just learned about a great new book yesterday called Sixty Seconds: One Moment Changes Everything. If you click on the link you can learn all about the contributors, read the intro, and get a great preview of the book. Here's one of the many reviews:

"Life is made up of a series of moments, moments that often fly by without notice, vaporizing into the past. And yet, every once in a while, an experience seems to make time stand still. A mere moment has such a profound effect upon our lives that we are changed forever. Those moments are the ones we remember, reflect on, and carry with us. Phil Bolsta has put together a beautiful collection of just such moments, shared by some of the most accomplished and respected teachers of our time. This book, and the moving stories contained in its pages, is absolutely awesome. I love it!" -- Lisa Marie Coffey, author of What's Your Dosha, Baby?

And lastly, that half an hour of magic known as The Office returns tonight at 9pm. Here's the description: GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER - Pam and Jim find they have run out of excuses and are forced to go to Jan and Michael's house for dinner. When Andy and Angela are also invited to dinner, Dwight's jealousy gets the best of him.
And in honor of that, here are some Office motivational posters to cheer you up.

Reach for the stars, but don't hurt yourself.

The will to succeed is only overshadowed by the desire not to be fired.

Sometimes you just have to wait for a change in management.

Any Job in the World

Not too much around these parts except recovering from the aforementioned illness and unsuccessfully attempting to tackle the to-do list. Actually, if I was smart enough to make a physical to-do list instead of the one that floats awkwardly through my mind, it might be more effective. My mom-friends frequently talk about having "mom brain" where they forget everything because there is simply too much to do, and it makes me wonder if there is such thing as "wedding brain." If there is, I have it.

And since I'm sure you don't want to hear about my list, we're having another poll! The rain boot poll was exceptionally fun, so I have another one for you. The question is "What job would you have if you could have ANY job in the world, even if it doesn't exist?"

And to help you understand, let me give you some examples: My job would be to cuddle baby tigers. In my eyes, there is nothing cuter than a baby tiger and I've watched "Growing Up: Baby Tiger" so many times on Animal Planet that I pretty much have it memorized. So if I could do anything, I would be paid to just be surrounded by tiny tigers and play with them all day and give them hugs!

B said his job would be to live in the Rainforest House at the Central Park Zoo. Another friend of ours said he would be a professional "Put You in Your Place"er and he would walk around just putting people in their place. So be creative and tell me what invented job you'd like to have!!


PS - The Office returns on Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lost Weekend

Usually I would say that I have a case of Secret Immune System Arrogance. I don't get colds as often as other people and when I do, they're only about half as bad. I chalk this up to water, vitamins, a healthy attitude, and being an obsessive hand washer. B makes fun of me for turning him into someone who is hyper-aware of the cleanliness of his hands. Of course, for him, this means he's up to about 3 washings a day, but it's still a step in the right direction.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. I lost my entire weekend to a terrible and strange cold. It started Friday afternoon when I battled the day with a sore throat and then was told I couldn't volunteer at our Friday night museum event because if the mothers heard how bad my cough was, they would surely flood our phone lines with angry calls about how we exposed their children to sickness.

So I went home and sat on the couch and got worse. My terrible sinus pain and general illness meant that I was awake all night watching movies on TBS until 6:30am when I finally fell asleep for an hour. Then Saturday.... oh, Saturday...

Despite a constant regimen of Sudafed and Advil, my sinus and ear pain was absolutely excruciating. Did you ever notice that when you're that sick, the whole world just stops? Every minute of every hour is slowed down and your awareness shrinks to about a one foot circle around you. And then there was the weirdest symptom of all - the sneezing.

This crazy infection was accompanied by the most violent sneezing I have ever experienced. Constant sneezing that bent me in half and made my limbs flail out - I even accidentally kicked B at one point, doubling him over in pain!

So Saturday night I spent on the couch again, but I did get a few hours of sleep, so that was nice. Then a few hours into the day on Sunday, I felt like I was starting to come out of my coma. When I came into relative consciousness, I noticed 2 strange things: my hands and feet were covered in over 40 small bites from some ridiculous insect that found me on the couch the previous night, and I couldn't walk from all the sneezing. I have no explanation for the odd and gross bite thing, but my stomach and back muscles were in such terrible pain from the sneezing, I literally couldn't walk! Even now, I'm on constant Advil to deal with the soreness.

So, it's Monday morning at 5am and our weekend was totally shot, which really sucks, but I'm basically better now. I have to tell you that B was an absolute saint. He spent all day Saturday getting me tea, heating up the hot packs for my sinuses, getting me water, and cleaning the house like a mad man. I mentioned that we'd have to disinfect the house since we'd both been sick, and he went on a Clorox, cleaning, and laundry rampage. I didn't even know what he had done until Sunday at 11am when I finally got off the couch. Bless him - what a total sweetheart!

Hope your weekend was better than mine. I'll try to post more, I know I've been slacking lately due to the increasing insanity of life. But as the wedding gets closer and our jobs continue their pace, I can't promise anything!

Too tired... Here's some porn

I had every intention to post tonight, but with pilates, grocery shopping for cough medicine, and washing B's germ sheets from his terrible cold, I've run out of stamina. So instead of writing a legitimate post, I'm taking the easy way out by giving you some really funny pictures. The title of them is "Women's Porn"

"I like to get to these things before I have to be asked"

"As long as I have legs to walk on, you'll never have to take out the garbage"

"Is that the baby? I'll get her."

"Ooh, look, the NFL playoffs are today. I bet we'll have no trouble parking at the crafts fair"